| Model | Prognosis |
| Truly global players spanning three or more continents |
Top of the food chain predators (but, like predators, limited in number) |
| Capital-markets-centric specialty firms headquartered in a global financial center—often historically tethered to a major I-bank
|
Intrinsically the most lucrative, high-margin practices, but also prone to parochialism and conceit. Vulnerable to global dislocations, complacency |
| Corporate-centric firms headquartered in non-global cities catering to sophisticated upper/-middle market, mostly non-financial services
|
Fertile soil for tremendous growth in the 20th-C.: But these firms need to beware markets moving out from under them |
| “Category killer” specialists targeting one broad but not necessarily high-intrinsic-value practice
|
Hungry and effective acquirers absorbing any encroachers; the best will persuade other firms to surrender the category entirely |
| Traditional boutiques
|
Will always be with us; a durable and evergreen model |
| “The Hollow Middle:” One-size-fits-all, not a special destination, generic law firms
|
Endangered; at risk of marginalization, irrelevance |
| Emerging “synergistic super-boutiques”
|
A fascinating evolutionary innovation |
Biological classification, or taxonomy, reads down thus, with humans as the example:
- domain/eukarya
- kingdom/animalia
- phylum/chordata
- class/mammalia
- order/primates
- family/hominidae
- genus/homo
- species/sapien
Starting at the top, this identifies us as:
- having cells with a nucleus
- unable to produce our own food
- with a backbone
- with hair, producing live young, which are fed with milk
- with opposable thumbs
- walking upright
- the same, or alike
- wise (I’m just reporting here, folks)
I deliberately chose the fuzzy classification”model” rather than anything quite as specific as one of these categories to leave room for introducing various sub-types, but if you had to pin me down I’d say there’s at least room for several species of firm within each model.
I stress the biological analogy because I find it helpful to understanding the ecosystem of law firms. There’s competition within species (between individual firms who are essentially alike) as well as competition across species (between, e.g., global firms and boutiques). There’s also, as we know well, the phenomena of birth, death and perhaps even extinction of certain categories.
Each of the next installments in this series will discuss the pro’s and con’s, challenges and opportunities, facing each particular model, as well as what the management priorities for that type of firm ought to be.
But let’s tackle the first category, “Global Players,” forthwith.
